The Scourge of Aquitaine

In the days of King Louis the Righteous, fifteenth ruler of Bretonnia, a crusade to
liberate the Estalian people from the oppression of invaders from Araby, brought many
Knights to battle first in Estalia and then in the hot desert lands of sultan Darius-iQuabir. One of these noble warriors was the Duke of Aquitaine. The Duke was an
impressive, powerful man, widely known as a skilful swordsman and capable knight. He
led his retinue of knights, squires and men-at-arms in many successful battles against the
heathen forces of Araby. Unfortunately even the bravest and most gallant knights are
sometimes defeated.
During the siege of Lashiek, shortly after the walls had fallen, the Duke of Aquitaine
disappeared and was counted as lost. For several days rumours and speculations about
his fate went through the encampment of the crusaders, until he was finally found,
gravely wounded and delirious, but alive. The faithful followers of the Duke looked after
him, and refused to give up hope. They drew him home, through scorching deserts and
Orc ambushes, at last arriving in Bretonnia and eventually the Duke's castle in Aquitaine.
Darkness fell over the castle, as the fallen Duke was laid in his bed, unconscious and
racked with a blistering fever. His knights and squires mourned for him and swore,
without a thought, to serve him even beyond death; words that would bring about their
own doom. When his heart stopped and his body grew cold the ever loyal and
heartbroken retainers buried the Duke under his castle, as was the custom in those times,
and sang a hymn for his soul long into the night.
The next day found the knights and squires exhausted from their vigil. The sun refused
to break through the haze, and as the sad and tired retainers of the deceased Duke
languished before the dying embers of the previous nights fire, the hall of the duke
lapsed into silence. By days end all the inhabitants of the castle were sleeping, while
outside the castle, storm clouds gathered and the rain began to fall. In the tomb of the
Duke a transformation was taking place.
With first a groan, and then a scream of anguish, the Duke opened his eyes and beheld
the vault in which he lay. A gnawing hunger and terrible thirst racked his reanimated
body. With inhuman strength he forced his way out of the crypt in which he had been
entombed. At first he staggered on his feet, as if drunk. Then quickly regained his
balance and, snatching up the sword he had been buried with, nearly flew up the stairs
and into the castle halls above.
He entered the great hall and found his loyal retainers fast asleep. Filled with a rage he
could neither comprehend nor control he began first to slay them with his sword and
then to drink from their slit throats their life's' blood. He had become a repulsive
vampire, depraved with an unknown torture. As his thirst was quenched his anger
abated, but none was left alive in the great hall of the Duke. As awareness at what he had
done began to break through his clouded mind the Duke was engulfed in guilt and shed
tears over his victims. They would be the last tears he would ever shed, but the guilt
would remain forever.

The storm that had assaulted the castle broke as the sun began to climb into the morning
sky. The first rays of sun to penetrate the windows of the great hall burned into the eyes
of the duke, as he lay penitent on the floor before his statue of the Lady of the Lake.
Realizing the danger, almost too late, the Duke rushed down the stairs into the hateful
crypt so recently vacated. Each subsequent dawn would find him here pondering the fate
to which he had been cursed.
After the sun had set the Duke would emerge from the tombs beneath his castle and
driven by his thirst would feed on the servants and peasants that yet remained about the
castle. So soon they were depleted and the Duke had to range further abroad to hunt his
prey. His foraging eventually brought him in contact with the Sorceress Isabeau. Isabeau
lived in a great tower at the foot of the Massif Orcal. The tower was an ancient ruin,
which lay at a focus point of magical forces and had been abandoned by the elves
millennia ago. Knowing the strength of Vampires, Isabeau charmed the Duke with words
of comfort and promise. She brought him into her tower, in the forest of Chalons. By
night she would bring him cups of blood from anonymous sources and her books of
arcane lore for him to study the arts of sorcery and the ancient history of the Vampiric
race.
Armed with his newly acquired knowledge and accustomed to his life as a creature of
the night, the Duke returned to his castle and resumed his place as ruler of Aquitaine. To
the skeletons of his former men at arms he gave movement and they took their place as
his guardians once more. Upon the sick and malformed he showered mercy and gave
shelter within his domain but his twisted mind and neverending thirst truly made him a
monster.
At the occasion of each winter and summer solstice the Duke would kidnap a maiden
from the many villages near his castle. They were never to be seen again. At the same
time many travellers disappeared in the surrounding woodlands, and nobody knew to
say, whether they had become victim of the Duke or the ever-increasing wolf packs.
His true name no longer used; most people referred to the treacherous ruler of Aquitaine
as the Red Duke (if they could speak of him at all). Hundreds fled northwards to escape
from the terrors of their homeland, only to be taken into slavery or serfdom in other parts
of Bretonnia. The duke himself seemingly never left his castle; only during the night he
would venture into the countryside in his sinister black carriage. The horror of those dark
nights would keep peasants huddled in fear behind barred doors wary of the sound of
thunderous hooves.
Visitors and messengers returning from the duke's court would always report of
unnatural sights. The castle guards, clad in black robes, would never show their faces.
Their movement was a measured tread and their weapons held strangely rigid. The castle
is a place of darkness and even on the brightest day shadows darken the grounds about
the castle and a strange mist blocks the sunlight. The interior is illuminated as if by pale
moonlight and the windows are ever covered by dark and heavy tapestry. Fires burn low
and provide no warmth.
The Red Duke never pursued the invitations to visit other nobility and even ignored the
summons of the king. While the nobility considered him snobbish, disregard of the
king's authority in Bretonnia is counted as high treason. Therefore, in time, a herald of
the king arrived at the duke's court and demanded him to comply with the king's order to
appear, and thus make the accusations against him ineffective. In his arrogance the duke

killed all of the heralds retinue and sent the herald, blinded and beaten, back to his king.
The king was in rage, how could one of his vassals dare to put his authority in question
to such an extent and refuse a direct order in this way. He commanded one of his faithful
vassals, the Duke of Bordeleaux to raise an army and to send it against the Red Duke.
The objective was to take the duke into custody and to bring him to the king; no one yet
knew that the rebellious duke was in fact a vampire. Duke Blanch of Bordeleaux
planned to occupy the land and possibly to set the castle in a state of siege, and secretly
hoped to be able to annex part of the dukedom of Aquitaine to his own territory.
The Red Duke aware of the king's wrath and the army assembling in Bordeleaux
conspired with the sorceress, Isabeau, in the forest of Chalons. The Red Duke sought an
alliance, with the hope of being able to rebuff the troops being assembled against him.
Isabeau ostensibly agreed. She recognized the Red Duke for what he was - an inhuman
monstrosity from the realm of death. Nevertheless Isabeau tried to subject the halfdaemon with enchantments to bind him to her will. She realised too late that she had
underestimated the magical abilities of the duke, who upon realizing her betrayal
cautiously avoided a direct confrontation with the sorceress.
The Duke then sent his undead servants to her tower to kill her. As the servants of the
Red Duke reached the tower, Isabeau was in a trance, preparing enchantments to enslave
the duke. She did not suspect the danger, but awakened just seconds before the undead
creatures reached her chambers. Weakened by her spell preparation, Isabeau fled, only to
be torn to pieces by dire wolves. As the Red Duke arrived on the scene she was barely
alive, blood ran from her throat and dozens of other wounds. Her torn up body lay in an
unnatural twisted position and the last thing she perceived in life was the Red Duke's
harsh voice: "you refused to serve me in life, so you will serve me eternally in death."
Thus did Isabeau become a Banshee wailing her laments while held in thrall by the dark
magic of the Duke of Aquitaine.
It was not long before the royal army, led by the Duke of Bordeleaux, marched into
Aquitaine. The Red Duke rode arrogantly forth with his army to engage them before
they could lay siege. The peasant levies marched before their master, fighting for him, as
they would for any other overlord. Alongside the Duke were ghouls and dire wolves and
other darker things from the realm of death. The Duke of Bordeleaux ordered his troops
to attack the moment he discerned the monstrous horde. A dreadful battle erupted over
the fields of Ceren. Little is told of this battle, but in the end the Chevaliers d'Honneur
broke through the centre of the troops from Aquitaine. The Red Duke was wounded and
his army decimated. He fled to his castle, pursued by three swift riders of Duke Blanch.
Among the riders were Sir Henri d' Arden and his loyal squire Pierre. The third rider was
a priestess of Shallya. They tracked him to his castle and searching through the gloom, at
last found him deep beneath the surface in a lavishly adorned crypt. In the vault
preceding the crypt were three coffins, each holding the pale corpse of a damsel, victims
of the Red Duke's thirst. Around the neck of each maiden was a golden key on an
exquisite chain also of gold. The use of the keys was readily apparent for beyond the
coffins was a heavy oak door with three locks. Emanuel, the priestess, took the keys
form the necks of the damsels and proceeded to unlock the door to the crypt. Upon
gaining access to the Dukes crypt, Sir Henri and Pierre rushed to the sarcophagus and
when Pierre threw back the lid, Sir Henri thrust a length of his broken wooden lance

through the chest of the reclining Vampire. The wounded duke howled in agony, and it
appeared as if in his flailing the undead lord might try to take his attackers with him to
the gates of Morr. The castle itself trembled with empathy at the destruction of its
master. Sir Henri, his squire and the priestess ran from the vault beneath the castle as bits
of masonry began to fall about them. They reached the open air just before the entire
structure collapsed upon itself.
It would have surely been advisable to burn the remains of the Red Duke, as was
demanded by the clergy. But none could be found with the desire to dig through the ruins
of the castle to recover his body. Sir Henri, who had lost his own daughter to the thirst of
the Red Duke, no longer had the will to return to the site of his daughters demise. He had
recovered her body in one of the upper floors of the Castle and Emanuel had carried it
outside while Pierre and his master searched with burning anger for the hiding place of
the Red Duke. Sir Henri's daughter was buried in a village cemetery near the river
Morceaux, with a silver cross around her neck. Emanuel recited prayers over the grave
of Nanette and then again over the ruins of the Red Duke's castle. Each of the three
companions, who had encountered the Red Duke in his crypt took one of the three
golden keys and then departed from Aquitaine.